A different kind of poverty

In the Swedish Svenska Dagbladet today was an opinion column entitled "Swedish poverty has many faces" by Göran Skytte, which jolted my memory back to one of my graduate courses at the Stockholm University. We were then discussing the Swedish welfare state and what it has achieved over a 100- year period since it became the pillar of the social system. It was going to erase poverty and close the gap between the very rich and the very poor through an egalitarian system of wealth distribution.

This is through taxation in proportion to one's earning. The higher the wages and corporate profits, the more one pays to the tax authority. Welfarism consists of a social security system where the individual is state-protected from "cradle to coffin". It was going to erase poverty, including the word poverty from the Swedish dictionary of welfare state. This dream state was designed for a population then of around five million natural-born Swedes. It was not a huge unwieldy number of people to support with state generosity.

Today, the population make-up of Sweden has dramatically changed after the influx of refugee and asylum-seekers from Africa, the Middle East and the Balkan countries. Sweden opened its doors to people fleeing from war and accommodated as many it could take. The welfare state became over-burdened with social issues of integration, unemployment, religious fanaticism and a deteriorating economic situation for a majority of people living on the fringes of society.

This is what the social cancer the Swedish politicians call utanförskap or outsiders. They are mostly wards of the social system because they are economically poor. Despite the unemployment benefits, child subsidy, housing subsidy and other forms of state interventions - this new population group in Sweden are users rather than contributors in the welfare state system that is based on taxes. To be economically poor in a well-functioning welfare state is not the same poverty in comparison with those living in other parts of the world where one gets nothing from the state.

But the other kind of poverty we have ignored is the poverty of the soul, the spiritual bareness of the human self that is not easily discerned from outside. The material world has overwhelmed us with the tangible proof of success and prosperity that we are actually drowning from the weight of these things. When Mother Theresa took her Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she was alleged to have said: " This is a poor country". Wealth cannot be measured in the number of cars, big houses, luxury boats and material acquisitions. If one cannot spend a moment in prayer at the end of the day and if there is no soul that inhabits the physical self then we are indeed extremely poor. #

The other sisters in chains

Today more than any other time of the year, the world looks at the situation of women in certain cultures and countries. If half the women population has improved its position in society with the help of national legislations that recognise equality between men and women, the other half remains chained to medieval traditions where women existence is not even recognised.

What reminders have come out of the newspapers today? One is a collective call signed by well-known Swedish personalities urging the European Union to legislate harsher punishment committed against women in war-torn areas, such as sexual exploitation by peace-keeping soldiers in places like Bosnia, and the sexual violence committed by soldiers and militiamen against the women folk in places like Rwanda. It is now well-known that rape has become an instrument of torture in war zones. To stop sexual abuses of women in countries at war means that war itself has to be stopped. That in itself is a major agenda.

Putting aside the situation of women in war areas in Africa and the Middle East where sexual violence is a daily routine and focusing on women condition in peaceful modern societies, many women are victims of domestic violence - that is to say, violence in the hands of their nearest kin. The statistics on domestic violence is not going down. On the contrary, it has been steadily rising along with other social ailments related to unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse and the transplanting of medieval social and religious practices in European soil, where women are literally still in chains. How else would one describe a mask that shows only the eyes of the woman?

The other gender inequalities such as unequal wages between men and women, or less women leaders in the corporate world are daily fights to take up and chances are that, the social structures that create these barriers will eventually diminish. But the removal of chains imposed by religion and tradition is a harder challenge because it will question the men's superiority in these cultures. As for sexual violence in war areas, the agenda is stopping war itself. And that is the hardest challenge of all.#